It is well known to those skilled in the art that aromatic hydrocarbons are a class of very important industrial chemicals which find a variety of uses in petrochemical industry. Recent efforts to convert gasoline to more valuable petrochemical products have therefore focused on the conversion of gasoline to aromatic hydrocarbons by catalytic cracking in the presence of zeolite catalysts. The aromatic hydrocarbons produced by the conversion process include benzene, toluene and xylenes (hereinafter collectively referred to as BTX) or C.sub.6 to C.sub.8 hydrocarbons, which can be useful feedstocks for producing various organic compounds and polymers. However, heavier, less useful aromatic compounds are also produced during the conversion process. Therefore, a catalyst and a process for converting these heavier and less useful aromatic compounds (mainly trimethyl- and tetramethylbenzenes) to the more valuable BTX hydrocarbons would be a significant contribution to the art and to the economics.